a bleeding purple utah jazz blog

Locker Room Cleanout: 1 of (undetermined)

Earl Watson** Prognosis: Torn meniscus. Everything is healing. I’m ahead of schedule in rehab. I’m a overachiever in everything that I do.**on Derrick Favors: His time is now. It’s no more future with him. His time is right now, and he’s accepted it. What I love about Derrick Favors more than any skill or anything that he has…is that when we lost that game last night, he was cursing all the way off the court. He was hot. I love that drive, and that drive is what I can feed off that throughout the game.** on Enes Kanter and Alec Burks: [Enes] has to really have a great summer and I think he’ll put in the work. He loves to work. Luckily he’ll be in L.A. a lot so I’ll see him a lot, stay on him. He’ll probably hate me at the end of the summer. Alec, he’s gonna be in Kansas City with me a lot too, so I have him around a lot. Alec, defensively is where he needs to grow the most, and he can be an amazing defender.** I don’t want to be a [general manager]. I want to be a coach…I’m not G.M. material. I like to get out on the court, grab players by their jerseys and shake ‘em up.** on Raja/Corbin situation: I have enough on my plate with knee surgery and I’m trying to get healthy. I’m more concerned about how do I get my daughter to Disneyland ’cause she keeps bugging me. She keeps [saying], “Is basketball season over, dada? You told me you gon take me to Disneyland.” So I have a bigger personality to deal with right now…I have to deal with my daughter and slowly progress to going to Disneyland. So that’s my whole focus right now.

Derrick Favors** On being patient throughout the year: I didn’t want to rush anything. I knew I was in a great opportunity to learn from Al and Paul, so I didn’t want to mess anything up. So I was just gonna be patient and just wait my turn and just learn as much as I can from those two.** [How are you different than when the year started?] I got a lot more confidence in myself. Think I’m more of a better player, better person. Just a different person overall. I finally feel like I’m in [the] NBA, compared to last year when I was going through all them trade rumors and crazy stuff. I finally feel like I’m in the NBA now…I feel like this is my first year in the league.**[Do you remember how pissed you were walking off the floor last night?] I remember walking off the floor but I don’t remember what I was saying. I was just saying a whole lot of stuff. I told my mom, looking at our games, sometime they’ll put the camera on me, she can read my lips what I be saying. And my grandma used to do the same thing and tell me, “Derrick, you need to watch what you say on TV.”** They want me to play [in the Summer League]. [What do you want to do?] They want me to play, I play. I can’t tell them no. They the boss, so I do what they tell me to do.** [Who’s been the biggest mentor to you on the team? Was it coach, was it a player?] Mostly the players, like Al and Paul. They help me out a lot during practice. During games, they give me advice about certain situations. In practice, just help me out with my game.** [Is it important to you to start?] Right now, I just want to be out there. I really not looking at starting or whatever. I just wanna be out there playing.**On vacation plans: Nah, I’m too young for vacation.

Jamaal Tinsley** I would love to come back.** Jazz gave me a opportunity. I took advantage of it. I just wanted to come in and try to be a leader and help guys do things the right way on the court, off the court, and just letting them know certain things in life you can’t control. You always can control about being a better family man, or person, or basketball player.

DeMarre Carroll** The way they talking, they’re probably gonna [pick up my option]. So hopefully next year be a big year for me, hopefully I can be in Utah for a long time.** Until it’s set in stone, til it’s on paper, I gotta continue to be a #trueprofessional and still continue to play for 29 teams.Obviously there was no hashtag when he was talking; that’s just the way it looked in my head.** I look at guys like Bruce Bowen, Sefalosha for OKC, and Tony Allen and those guys. I really try to pattern my game after them, but I really want to be able to knock down my shots better than them.** I’ll play summer league for the Jazz.** [Where do you shop for clothes?] I shop plenty of places. Neiman Marcus, Nordstrom, Gucci, Louis [Vuitton]. But I try not to do everything everybody else do. I try to spice it up a little…I love my clothes.Um….hate to break it to ya, but shopping in these four places is exactly doing “everything everybody else [in the NBA] do.”** Sometimes I still pinch myself just to see if it’s true. I worked so hard this summer, and I spent so much time in the gym. They say hard work pays off, and that’s what I always tell the younger kids in my camp. Playing hard is a talent. If you play hard, it’s a talent. Sometime you might not be the gifted person, but if you play hard, it is a talent.

Josh Howard** I’m [an] NBA player, if I can get on any team it’d be great. But of course Utah would be my first pick. It’s the last team I played for.** On the season: Enjoyed myself, ‘specially being in Utah. A lot of NBA players think of Utah and don’t wanna come (#UDQM), but I jumped into this as a challenge and enjoyed every minute of it. Utah’s a great place to play.

Jeremy Evans** [Do you expect to be back next year?] Yes I do. Hopefully it stays that way and hopefully you see me next year. [Will you look elsewhere?] I’ll talk to my agent, we’ll see. See how it goes from there.**[Did you get Gordon to eat anywhere other than Subway?] No. He went out sometimes without me eating at Subway. He stayed with the Subway…I wouldn’t say I ditched him, ’cause he might’ve ditched me just to go to Subway ’cause we wanted to eat somewhere else.** [Offseason plans?] Probably just go see what my agent has for me. Think he has a couple of workout spots. And then do a couple of Junior Jazz appearances, and hopefully play summer league. [Will you do summer league with the Jazz?] That’s a good question. Depends what they want me to do…hope so.** Gist of exit interview: They said just keep playing hard, keep working and hopefully everything works out and you’re here next year.** Wedding date: Aug. 25.** Highlight of the season: Probably the offensive foul what’s-his-name took, when I dunked it…Gerald Wallace.Jeremy wasn’t trash talking; he just couldn’t remember Wallace’s name at the moment.

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As always Moni, great work. Besides how many wins the team had this year, the biggest surprise for me by the end of the year was Favors attitude. I always thought he would be great but I was not sure about his drive and tenacity. He is a quite dude who is very polite which belies the sheer determination and competitiveness I saw from him in the San Antonio series. The amount of talent he posses and his patience with his playing position speaks volumes to me. He is starting to remind me of Paul Millsap in his determination just with more natural ability. He is going to be a juggernaut if my perception of him proves accurate.

Hey, I wanted to drop a line and offer my thanks for running a great blog this year. I suspect you probably haven’t seen my name before this season, but I followed your blog closely through the season and look forward to following you through the offseason. Really great work, thanks for sticking with it.